J.R. Watson

WATSON, John Richard. b. Ipswich, Suffolk, 15 June 1934. Richard Watson was educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford and (after a National Service commission in the Royal Artillery) at Magdalen College, Oxford (BA 1958, MA 1964; Matthew Arnold Memorial Prize, 1962). After two years as a teacher of English at Loretto School near Edinburgh, he became a post-graduate student at the University of Glasgow, gaining his PhD (1966) with a study of William Wordsworth. He was lecturer in the English departments at the Universities of Glasgow (1962-66) and Leicester (1966-78), moving to Durham as Professor of English, 1978-99; Public Orator, 1989-99; and Emeritus Professor since 1999: his inaugural...